


Withdrawal

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Heart of the Woods (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F, Post Game fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: Once, Maddie was the fairy queen. Once, she experienced what it was to be a fairy, and what it was to be part of their hive. Even after everything has ended, her mind still remembers what it once was.





	Withdrawal

I jolt awake in a panic.

I'm alone, and surrounded by silence. My senses are gone. I try to grope blindly around me, but I can't reach out.

I force myself to calm down.

I'm not blind. I can see the wall of the bedroom and the clock hanging from it. I force myself to read the time to make sure I can. 6:12. Too early, but not the middle of the night.

My ears work too, and they tell me it isn't really silent. I can hear the heater quietly rumbling in the corner. It hasn't even been that cold lately, but Abigail is still so unused to feeling temperature at all and so amazed by modern technology that she insists on having it on.

Speaking of Abigail, I'm not alone either.

She's lying by my side, the covers over her rising and falling slightly with her breathing. If I listen carefully, I can hear her inhale and exhale. She's not the only around one, either. Tara and Morgan are here, too, just across the hall, almost certainly.

It goes without saying that my arms work as well. I bring my hands up to my face and see that they're shaking.

With a sigh, I press my fingertips against my forehead and bury my face in my hands.

I know what I'm really feeling.

The silence and isolation has nothing to do with where I am, or what's around me. It's in my own head. An oppressive emptiness that makes my thoughts feels like quiet words echoing in a vast cathedral. It's just me there. Only my thoughts and my physical senses. No chattering of silent conversation at the edge of my brain, no network of feeling extending out to the forest beyond. One thought happens, and then another follows, their order firm and fixed, marching in lockstep with the tick of a clock in a single direction.

If I want to change things, I have to use my body. The reach I had before, the capacity to extend my mind out and speak to the woods, to move myself through it or bring things to me from elsewhere, is gone. The invisible limbs I used to take hold of that energy are severed, not even leaving stumps, just a sense of loss and separation.

I miss the presence of the fairies so much that I feel sick.

No wonder Abigail was so worried about me taking a trial run of being the fairy queen. How could someone taste that connection and emerge unchanged? How had Geladora endured this? How had she survived being cut off, trapped in the body of a cat and only able to communicate by speaking while she stayed in the village?

How had I managed to walk away? At the time, it had seemed to instinctual, to channel myself into Geladora, to give her back the power that she wielded so much better than me. Could I have done it if I'd known consciously what it meant? As the fairy queen, so much of my life was just feeling and knowing, knowledge seated within me without ever being learned or considered. If I'd had a moment to think, if I'd reached out and held the knowledge of this future in my mind instead of it lurking outside of conscious thought, could I have given up my place?

I hear Abigail stir beside me, but I don't open my eyes. Even though I know it's futile, I keep grasping for the feeling of being part of the fairy hive. It's useless, of course. You can't _remember_ something like that. Being a fairy doesn't have time. You're either a fairy or you're not. There is no past tense. Trying to hold those feelings in your head based on a memory of them is like trying to eat a meal based on the plate it was served on. The sensations blur together, my clinical internal description of what it was like the only real recollection left. I _know_ what it felt like, but never again can I _feel_ what it felt like.

“Madison…?” Abigail's voice is sleepy. I must have woken her up. “Are you okay?”

I struggle to answer, the reflexive “I'm fine” dying on my lips.

Finally I manage to speak, still not looking at her.

“Do you miss the forest, Abby?”

“Of course I do, at least a little,” she says. “I don't miss Eysenfeld, but some of the forest, like the fairy’s grove-”

“Sorry,” I say. “I don't mean the location. I mean… the forest. Do you miss being part of it?”

There's a brief silence.

“Yes,” she says at last, her voice small and mournful. “I'm happy to be human again, of course. The world is so exciting, and I'm overjoyed to be able to see it with you. But… it feels like I'm missing part of myself sometimes.”

She's so honest. It makes it impossible to hold back my tears.

“I miss the fairies,” I whisper. “Abby, I miss them so much. I can't feel us anymore. We're all back there, except me, and it hurts.”

Abigail sits up to pull me against her in a hug as I start to cry. She murmurs softly to me as she strokes my head gently, letting me cling to her and holding me close. She was never the fairy queen, but she was part of the forest too. I could feel her when I was queen, felt how she was tied to the spirit and the ancient grove. She's probably the only person in the world who can understand the pain and the loss I'm feeling.

I don't know how long I cry for. Not long enough for Tara to wake up, thank god. It's still too early for her to be awake when I finally grow quiet, my tears exhausted.

“Are you feeling better, Madison?” Her voice is so gentle that I almost want to cry again, for different reasons. Instead I just nod against her, and she pats me reassuringly.

“How do you stand it?” I ask softly, looking up into her face. There are faint tracks of tears on her cheeks as well.

“Because I have a new connection,” Abigail says, smiling at me. “I was connected to the forest, but I was still alone in many ways. The animals and the spirit were my friends, but… they couldn't ever really be my companions in the same way as another human. They're too different.”

I nod almost subconsciously. The fairies couldn't be mistaken for human. Their presence wasn't like being with another person. It was just you, but more of you. Fairies could tell each other apart, but the distinction wasn't an identity. It was like how you could tell your left thumb from your right- there was a difference, but neither was its own person. Even my connection to Abigail through the forest wasn't like actually being together, as warm and comforting as it had been.

“But then I met you,” Abigail says, her smile widening. “And the connection between us became so much more important to me. I thought for a moment when you first accepted the fairies’ offer that I might lose that connection, and I was terrified.” She lifts her hand and cups my cheek. I lean my face into it and she brushes her thumb against me softly. “But in the end, our connection just grew stronger. Even if I'm missing a part of me, now I have you, and Tara and Morgan as well. And I'm more than happy with that trade.”

Her smile grows a little devious and her eyes twinkle with mischief. “Although I did like when we didn't have to breathe,” she adds impishly. “It was very convenient.”

I laugh and swat at her, blushing.

She's right.

I do miss the fairies. It will probably take a long time for the pain of that loss to completely fade, for the cathedral of my mind to shrink back down again to fit me. But I don't want to go back. I don't want to give up Tara or Morgan or Abigail to have my link with the fairies again. I feel like I can answer my question from earlier now. If I'd known, in that moment, what future that decision would lead to, would I do it again?

Yes. I’d throw away my queenship in a heartbeat to chase the future that Abigail showed me back then.

“Thank you,” I say, sitting up and holding Abigail close, face to face instead of nestled into her chest this time.

Abigail leans in and gives me a quick kiss that becomes a long kiss as I lean in as well. When we break apart again for breath, Abigail giggles.

“See? I told you not needing to breathe was convenient.”

A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “I'm sure kissing was the only thing you were thinking of,” I say sarcastically, and Abigail giggles again. I can't help but note that she's not denying my implication.

I can already feel the pain and loneliness that seemed so all consuming when I woke up draining away, replaced with a warm glow.

“Shall we get up?” Abigail asks. “I think I can smell Morgan cooking breakfast.”

“Sure,” I say. I can't smell anything, but I've learned to trust Abigail's nose when it comes to food.

I was once the queen of the fairies. Once, I had a place that I fit in so completely that my very existence was part of the forest itself. But as I watch Abigail stand and stretch in the faint rays of sunlight coming in through my window, I no longer have any doubt about the truth.

This is where I really belong.


End file.
